Saturday, October 31, 2009

Picture descriptions: Left image: World air traffic visualisation Right image: Traffic at Heathrow Airport, LondonRelated sites to the Spatialworlds projectSpatialworlds website21st Century Geography Google GroupAustralian Geography Teachers' Association website'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project websiteGeography Teachers' Association of South Australia websiteEmail contactmanning@chariot.net.auWhere am I??Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'A mobile world diminishing in size!The spatial representations of air traffic movements are a great indication of the changed mobility of people, good, ideas and microbes around the world every day. The spatial perception people have about the size of the world is vastly different to what it was 100 years ago(40 years ago for that matter). Not only does the telephone and internet enable us to talk (and see) someone on the other side of the world, we can hop on a plane and be on the other side of the world ourselves in 24 hours. Air travel has become increasingly accessible and affordable for a large number of the worlds population and hence the interchange of ideas, people and even diseases has increased remarkably. Many observers say that the resulting changed spatial perceptions of the world has been a major driver of globalisation phenomena over recent years. The world is a "mobile feast" with all the associated good and bad consequences. Of interest to this blog is what is the impact on a persons spatial perception of the world and space as a result of this changed and ever diminishing "tyranny of distance"? Do people actually see the world as a smaller place. Just consider the following spatial representations of air traffic every 24 hours and some of the facts about air traffic in many of the countries of the world.Air traffic visualisations and information on the links and the range of ways to show global flight movements.The yellow dots are airplanes in the sky during a 24-hour period. Stay with the picture. You will see the light of the day moving from the east to the west as the Earth spins on it's axis. Also you will see the aircraft flow of traffic leaving the North American continent and travelling at night to arrive in the UK in the morning. Then you will see the flow changing, leaving the UK in the morning and flying to the American continent in daylight. It is a 24-hour observation of all of the large aircraft flights in the world, condensed down to about 2 minutes. From space we look like a beehive of activity.Such visualisations are wonderful ways to explore the related issues of increasingly world mobility with students.World flights in 24 hourshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4g930pm8Ms&feature=fvwUnited States Air Traffic in 24 hourshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viIJ1w2XZ1o&NR=1Europe Air Traffic in 24 hours in 3D!Some facts about air trafficFrom the National Air Traffic Controllers AssociationOn any given day, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies in the United States. Only 35 per cent, or just over 30,000 of those flights are commercial carriers, like American, United or Southwest. On an average day, air traffic controllers handle 28,537 commercial flights (major and regional airlines), 27,178 general aviation flights (private planes), 24,548 air taxi flights (planes for hire), 5,260 military flights and 2,148 air cargo flights (Federal Express, UPS, etc.). At any given moment, roughly 5,000 planes are in the skies above the United States. In one year, controllers handle an average of 64 million takeoffs and landings. Passenger and freight traffic forecasts projecting that in 2011 the air transport industry will handle 2.75 billion passengers (620 million more passengers than in 2006) and 36 million tonnes of international freight (7.5 million tonnes more than in 2006). International passenger demand is expected to rise from 760 million passengers in 2006 to 980 million in 2011 at an annual average growth rate (AAGR) of 5.1%. International freight volumes are expected to grow at an AAGR of 4.8% over the forecast period, supported by economic growth, globalisation and trade. Total international passenger numbers are forecast to be around 105 million in 2011, an increase of 30 million over 2006 levels. "The numbers clearly show that the world wants to fly. And it also needs to fly. Air transport is critical to the fabric of the global economy, playing a critical role in wealth generation and poverty reduction. The livelihoods of 32 million people are tied to aviation, accounting for US$3.5 trillion in economic activity,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

A recently released site exhibits a very interesting map from the1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the UnitedStates showing the rate of travel by rail from New York City in
1800. As you can see, in 1 day you barely got out of the city by today's
standards, and it took weeks to get only a couple states over. Time must have
travelled slowly in those days and distance perception must have been so
different to what we have today. A great example of time space compression
change.So how do we and will we see the world spatially in the future? Is the world getting smaller in our brains?? Interestingly there seems to be a lack of research on this change in peoples spatial perception as a result of the real and virtual mobility around the planet. I will keep looking for the research but at this stage I have come up with only commentary but not research.

Free GIS activities downloads for the classroom are now available from the Spatial Worlds website. The website is linked to this blog and over the past years has been a source of articles on using GIS in the classroom and spatial literacy. A page on the website now provides free downloads of GIS classroom activity's in GIS in geography, historical GIS and urban geography. Copyright on these chapters remain TECHGEOG's but you can download and use with ArcView 3 or adapt to your needs using ArcGIS or any other GIS software. The activities provide some useful templates to design a GIS course for physical geography, historical geography and urban geography. The only thing TECHGEOG asks is that you do not on-sell the activities once you have re-designed. If you wish to use in your school that is fantastic.

The resources include chapters from the:GIS in Physical Geography/Science book on:* The basics of ArcView* An excuse to hug a tree: using the CityGreen program* Water matters* Earthquakes* Rock mapping* Aquifer mapping* Australian minerals* Micro-climates* Ocean floor mapping* Internet sites.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Picture descriptions:Left image: The importance of a map! Especially to lost geographer tourists wandering the streets of Seoul!Right image: Motivated students in South Korea learning the geography of Australia. Is such compliance on the "need to know basis" or just the "need to achieve" imperative?

How to create the need to know?One of the challenges always facing geography teachers is convincing students why they need to know what we think they should know. The simple question of how to create the need to know in your classroom takes us down some interesting pathways. As teachers, if we cannot articulate why something is important for a student to know, then we must challenge ourselves as to whether we should be teaching the content or skills we are. This question becomes incredibly pertinent when one considers the discussions in relation to the national geography curriculum. Whilst not advocating that we only teach what student want to know, we must be conscious of the responsibility we have as educators to create an environment in the classroom which develops a curiosity and desire to want to know amongst our students. We should not expect students to be powerless receivers of the content we wish to teach! The context and reason for the importance of the content and skills we plan to teach needs to be created at the beginning of every course, topic, activity and experience. The national curriculum’s remit that they are developing content which needs to be taught and skills which must be acquired is a worry if it is not supported by a rationale that clearly and realistically explains why the curriculum is important for the young person on the receiving end. As a citizen of the 21st century it is imperative that our students receive geographical education which is relevant and useful to them as an individual living in an increasingly complex and demanding world. So how do we create the need to know? This question takes us to the heart of learning and that is motivation. If motivated students are prepared to learn anything! I often hear one teacher say the kids found the topic boring and another saying the kids loved the same topic. It often is not the content that has changed but the context. The teacher who motivates can transfer their enthusiasm for a topic to a group of students regardless of the content. As a person who loved teaching soils and rocks I certainly know that others find such topics a challenge to teach! As well as authentic (or faked) enthusiasm on behalf of the teacher, students can be motivated by the plethora of technology now available to the geography teacher to make learning more relevant, inter-active, autonomous and exciting. The technologies often referred to in this blog, whether spatial or communication (wikis, blogs etc) are ways for students to see the inter-section between what they are studying in the classroom and the “real world” they live in. The technologies enable students to move beyond the classroom and see that the topic and skills they are learning have an application in the working world, family life and social functioning. As the American educator John Holt said:“The child is curious. They want to make sense out of things, find out how things work, gain competence and control over themselves and their environment, and do what they can see other people doing. They are open, perceptive, and experimental. They do not merely observe the world surrounding around, they do not shut themselves off from the strange, complicated world around them, but taste it, touch it, heft it, bend it, break it. To find out how reality works, they work on it. They are bold. They are not afraid of making mistakes. And they are patient. They can tolerate an extraordinary amount of uncertainty, confusion, ignorance, and suspense ... School is not a place that gives much time, or opportunity, or reward, for this kind of thinking and learning.”Geography with its traditional tendency towards exploration and curiosity about the world is perfectly positioned in the curriculum to enhance this aspect of student learning and have students engage in the world. Geography is not static and something to be learned within four walls only, it needs to be dynamic, interactive and explorative. Any geography curriculum developed must create in the students a "need to know" mentality. Allied to this needing to know, is the previously mentioned concept of nurturing the "discomfort of not knowing" with students. The inquiry methodology employed in geography is ideal to create such an environment for student exploration and learning. Spatial Technologies available to the teacher of geography is a wonderful tool to enhance student inquiry and exploration via software such as Google Earth (Google have recently developed a site for educators on how to use Google Earth in the classroom). For learning to be engaging and motivating for students the content and pedagogy needs to be:* Personally meaningful* Integrated* Coherent* Transformative* Transferable

Geography has traditionally done all of these things, plus being fun! Just for the fun of learning also check out the Lufthansa virtual pilot site (beats photocopied maps of Europe to learn places). I hope these thoughts are the premise we begin to write our national geography curriculum.David Lambert, Chief Executive of the Geographical Association in the UK has written an excellent article on the “The World in the curriculum: why geography matters”. His discussion on the role and nature of geography in the curriculum is interesting in the context of this blog. While on the GA and organisations working at making geography a core ingredient of the curriculum, the following information is of interest.

It includes a range of exciting new features including:* Lively homepage highlighting new additions and popular content* Resource Finder tool allowing users to search the GA’s vast collection of online resources using a variety of criteria* Tabbed Shop panel listing new books, recommendations and shopping basket contents* Members’ panel containing personal account details, bookmarks and recently viewed pages* New look Journals area with easy access to articles and associated resources* Cloud tags – a new way to find similar content using keyword matching* RSS Feeds – sign up for the latest website updates

The Geographical Association is a subject association with a mission to further the study, learning and teaching of geography.The website is a popular resource, used by teachers in more than 200 countries and receiving an average of 3000 pageviews a day. Our website keeps the geography teaching community up to date and provides a wide range of high quality resources, including our three well-respected journals.

A free guide to the new website is available to download and further information about the Geographical Association can be found on the site.

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Who am I?

I have taught history, geography and civics and citizenship in the South Australian education system since 1976. I have been actively involved in the promotion of geography and history over the years, in particular the use of spatial technology in schools. I am a Past Chair of the Australian Geography Teachers' Association (Chair 2008-13) and Immediate Past President of the Australian Alliance of Associations in Education (2013-present). During the development of the Australian Curriculum: Geography I was a member of the ACARA Advisory Panel (2009-2013) and Executive Director of the ESA GeogSpace project. From 2007-2011 and in 2015 I was the Manager for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) in the South Australian Department for Education and Child Development (DECD). Presently I am a Teaching Academic in HaSS Education at the University of South Australia and the Manager for the Premier's ANZAC Spirit School Prize in DECD.